1. Field:
This invention is concerned with the installation of hub caps on deeply recessed, drive axle wheels of heavy road vehicles, such as buses and various types of highway trucks.
2. State of the Art:
Heavy road vehicles, such as buses and various types of highway trucks, and particularly those with dual wheels, have been customarily provided with hub caps on all outside wheels except those carried by the drive axle or axles. Because the outside wheels attached to a drive axle are deeply recessed, so that the lug nuts which normally hold a hub cap in place are located at the bottom of the recess remote from the plane of the wheel rim against which a hub cap would normally fit, such wheels are customarily left without hub caps. Some way of simply and relatively inexpensively mounting hub caps on such drive wheels has long been desired.
Additionally, testing air pressure by the usual tire gauges and adding air from the usual air hoses when pressure is low in the tires of such deeply recessed wheels have been difficult, although, recently, flexible tubing has been used in some instances to connect the usual valve stems of the tires with auxiliary valve stems bolted to the drive axle hubs for more convenient access.